Vote Starmer, get Corbyn! Hard left runs Labour now - and it will make you pay

PM Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves played voters for fools at last year's election. They were desperate to distance themselves from previous Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who led the party to its biggest ever election defeat in 2019. So they posed as moderates: sensible, grown-up and sound on finance. And it worked.

Starmer and Reeves promised no new taxes on "working people" but never defined who that meant. They pledged not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, while refusing to say which taxes would rise instead.

The reality of their rule came as a shock. Income tax is rising in real terms every year via the threshold freeze, a stealth raid Reeves looks set to extend to 2030.

She hiked national insurance by £25billion last October, hammering jobs, wages and small businesses.

The Chancellor also raised capital gains tax, tightened inheritance tax on pensions, farmers and family firms, and grabbed more tax from dividends.

Say what you like about Jeremy Corbyn, but he was at least honest about his intentions. That's why voters rejected him.

Starmer and Reeves learned their lesson, and won power by hiding what they were really planning. Now it's staring us in the face.

As Corbyn himself warned, they don't have a mandate for the socialist tax-and-spend spree they've unleashed.

Renationalisation? It's arriving via regulation, starting with the trains. Higher taxes? Already here. Wild spending? Signed off.

The left didn't lose the argument. They bided their time. And Starmer is delivering their programme, quietly.

Remember John McDonnell? He was Corbyn's shadow chancellor, a Marxist firebrand too radical even for Ken Livingstone.

In 2019, McDonnell wanted to slash pension tax relief, hammer dividends, hike capital gains tax, extend inheritance tax and launch a borrowing binge to fund it all.

He also promised no hikes to income tax, VAT or national insurance for 95% of earners. Sound familiar?

Reeves said the same.

She's now targeting pensioners, workers, family businesses, landlords and investors anyone with a bit of wealth, just like McDonnell did.

Reeves also rewrite her own fiscal rules to justify a £50billion public investment splurge, just like he tried in 2019.

McDonnell planned to set up a National Investment Bank, to spend £250billion over a decade. Reeves has resurrected it as the "National Wealth Fund". See what she did there?

McDonnell will surely be kicking himself every day, for being so honest about his intentions.

Starmer and Reeves sold themselves as moderates. But their economic model is pure Corbyn. Voters rejected it in 2019. Now it's being imposed piece by piece.

Starmer's climbdown on disability benefit cuts is just the latest win for Labour's left, who increasingly run the show.

Now there are whispers of a plot to replace Reeves with someone further left, in a direct challenge to Starmer's fragile authority.

The public turned this project down decisively at the ballot box. But thanks to Starmer's deception, it's what we've got.

The left aren't just back. They're in charge.

Starmer and Reeves will cave in again and again. But they can never tax and spend enough to please party activists. No PM ever could.

We've got four more years of this. When the strings are finally cut from these two puppets, what comes next could be even worse.